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AGP (Add Grace Period) Limits Policy

January 25, 2012

The Add Grace Period (“AGP”) shall be restricted for .us in the following manner:

a. During any given month, the usTLD Administrator shall not offer any refund to an usTLD-Accredited registrar (hereinafter referred to as “Registrar”) for any domain names deleted during the AGP that exceed (i) 10% of that Registrar’s net new registrations (calculated as the total number of net adds of one-year through ten-year registrations) in that month, or (ii) fifty (50) domain names, whichever is greater, unless an exemption has been granted by the usTLD Administrator.

b. A Registrar may seek an exemption from the usTLD Administrator from the application of such restrictions in a specific month, upon the documented showing of extraordinary circumstances. For any Registrar requesting such an exemption, the Registrar must confirm in writing to the usTLD Administrator how, at the time the names were deleted, these extraordinary circumstances were not known, reasonably could not have been known, and were outside the Registrar’s control. Acceptance of any exemption will be at the sole and reasonable discretion of the usTLD Administrator, however “extraordinary circumstances” which reoccur regularly for the same Registrar will not be deemed extraordinary.

Implementation Details for Registrars

On January 25, 2012 the United States Department of Commerce approved a proposal to modify the add delete grace (AGP) policy for .us. This was done to address the problem of abuse of the add delete grace period. The new policy restricts the number of domains that may be deleted for credit during the 5 day add grace period. Registrars will be permitted to delete for credit no
more than the greater of 50 domains or 10% of their net monthly adds during each month. The following describes the implementation details along with several illustrative examples.

Neustar will implement the change to the policy in the following way. As add grace deletes are processed throughout the month, registrars will receive a full credit for each delete. At the end of the month, a calculation is performed to determine the maximum number of grace deletes allowed. This number is the greater of 50 or 10% of the net adds for the month. The net adds
are calculated by taking the gross number of adds submitted during the month less the number of add grace deletes submitted during the month. The greater of 50 or 10% of the net adds is the maximum number of grace deletes allowed for full credit. If the registrar has submitted more grace deletes than this maximum number then the registry will debit the registrar’s account for
the number of grace deletes that exceeded the maximum allowed. The amount debited is equal to the excess number of deletes times the current one year add fee (currently $6.00). This amount will be debited from the registrar’s account and will be reflected on the monthly statement.

The following are two examples:

Example 1
Registrar A registers 1,000,000 new domain name registrations during the month and then later deletes 999,200 domain name registrations during the add grace period in that month. The net number of new registrations for the month would be 800. Therefore the registrar would be entitled to eighty (80) free deletes (10% of 800). Because the registrar had deleted 999,200 new
domain names and did not provide any documentation regarding extraordinary circumstances, the registry would debit the registrar’s account for the full registration amount for 999,120 domains. This figure is based upon the net number of deletes (999,200) minus the number of free deletes (80) permitted by the registry. In this case, the number of free deletes is calculated by
taking 10% of the number of net new registrations (80). Because eighty is greater than the standard fifty (50) default, the 10% value (80) is used in calculating how much the registry debits the registrars account.

Example 2
Registrar B registers 300 new domain name registrations during the month and then later deletes 40 domain name registrations during the add grace period in that month. The net number of new registrations for the month would be 260. Although 10% of the net number of new registrations is twenty-six (26), the registrar would be entitled to fifty (50) free deletions. This is because the
monthly default value of fifty (50) is greater than the 10% calculation. Because the number of permitted free deletes exceeds the number of actual deletes, the registry would not debit any additional funds from the registrar’s account.

Exceptions to the Policy

Notwithstanding these limitations to the AGP, Neustar also acknowledges that there have been times when registrars have reasonably relied upon the AGP in extraordinary circumstances (e.g. malfunctioning software scripts, compromised systems, etc.). Therefore, we will accommodate exceptions to this policy in extraordinary circumstances. With this exception, a registrar would not be charged for certain deletes in excess of the monthly limit. However, to prevent potential gaming by registrars, the registrar must represent and document in writing how these extraordinary circumstances were not known, or could not have been reasonably known, and how these extraordinary circumstances were outside of its control. The exercise of the exception
mechanism will be at the sole discretion of Neustar, however “extraordinary circumstances” which reoccur regularly will be deemed to not be extraordinary.

In order to be considered eligible for an exemption, the Registrar must supply, within five business days from the date that the usTLD Administrator debits the account at the end of the any given month, at least the following information to the usTLD Administrator:

Registrar Name

IANA ID number

Date of request

Date names were deleted

Number of names deleted

List of names affected

Extraordinary circumstance/reason for request

A statement that the information in the Exemption Request is true to best of the Registrar’s knowledge.

Each Registrar’s exemption request must describe, with supporting documentation, the specific extraordinary circumstances upon which the request is based and explain how, at the time the names were deleted, any particular extraordinary circumstance was not known, reasonably could not be known, and was outside of the Registrar’s control. For example, an unforeseen defect in software development might not necessarily be considered to be in the Registrar’s control.

Submission of an exemption request should create no presumption of approval of the request. Grant of any exemption request is at the Operator’s sole and reasonable discretion.